Chapter Forty-Five: Circumvention

I was about to start cursing, but when I heard him speak, I changed my tone and asked, "If you have a way, hurry up and tell us." Peanut also looked at the fat man. The fat man, clearly feeling he'd regained some standing among the three of us, coughed twice before he spoke: "Did you notice the six side chambers here in this passage?"

After he said that, I turned to look at both sides of the corridor at the corner. I noticed that the spacing of these side chambers was obviously wider than the ones at the other end; there were three on each side, symmetrically arranged. My gaze swept across them, and quickly settled on the middle chamber on our left.

Unlike the other chambers, this one was sealed by a black iron door. At the time, I didn't really understand the specifics of ancient tombs, so I didn't pay much attention to whether there were doors or not. All my focus had been on the rock at the end, so I hadn't noticed this before.

But now, seeing it, I felt the door was glaringly out of place, standing in stark contrast to the surrounding tomb chambers.

The fat man continued, "You must have seen the side chambers outside the corner. As for these inside, except for the one sealed with the iron door, I've searched them all. The three chambers on the right are a bit like ancient armories, but without exception, everything there was stripped from corpses. My previous gear was taken from there too. The two open chambers on the left are filled with tattered clothing, also taken from the dead. In short, everything in these five chambers was tossed in haphazardly. And..."

As he spoke, the fat man walked up to the black iron door, tapped it with his knuckles, and said, "This iron door is very peculiar. Touch it and you'll see."

I didn't know what he was getting at, so I stepped forward and ran my hand over the black iron door. The texture was heavy and solid, as if an unbroken iron plate had been set into the chamber's entrance. Apart from that, I couldn't sense anything strange about it, so I looked at the fat man and said, "What's so odd? It's just a thick iron plate, isn't it?"

He looked at me with disappointment. "Look closely at the black stuff on the door. If you still can't spot the problem, you might as well forget rescuing your father and jump off a cliff instead."

I cursed him inwardly, but still examined the door carefully. This time, I felt a faint sense of something amiss, and when I pressed my hand against it, my heart skipped a beat.

"This..." I was astonished, looking at the fat man, unable to find words.

He gave me a mysterious nod. "Exactly. The black coating on the door is paint."

It was true. Paint is so common for modern people, but since this was a tomb from the Western Han period, I had never considered that the black color wasn't natural. I didn't know how ancient lacquer was made, but modern industrial paint had distinctive characteristics. The paint on this iron door was pitch black, and glinted under the torchlight. Even if people in the Han dynasty could produce lacquer of modern quality, after a millennium or two, it couldn't possibly remain pristine as it appeared before us.

"This paint is a little different from today's paints, but it hasn't been here for more than fifty years—it was imported at the time," the fat man said.

"But this is an ancient tomb! Even if someone came here before, why would they put up an iron door?" I asked in bewilderment.

Peanut was silent, but I saw a strange flicker in his eyes, as if he'd thought of something much deeper.

The fat man lit a cigarette and patted me. "Miss Yuan, don't make things so complicated. The armor, weapons, and clothing in the other chambers were all stripped from corpses and tossed around randomly—clearly done by later visitors. This iron door was installed in the fifties or sixties at the earliest. All this tells us that someone has been here, and what they did was anything but ordinary."

He then turned toward the chamber entrances. "There are coffins and clothing from corpses here, but not a single body. So where did all these things come from?"

With those words, he looked meaningfully at the iron door.

"You mean, behind this door is where the corpses are piled up?" The thought sent a chill wafting from the iron door toward me.

"I can't say for sure," the fat man replied, shrugging. "But a door this thick would be tough to haul up from the valley. If those people went to such lengths to seal this chamber, there must be a reason it had to be closed."

Suddenly, a bizarre scene flashed through my mind: a gang of tomb robbers from the fifties or sixties crowded in this passage, wielding hammers and tools, 'clang... clang...' with the sound echoing in the ancient tomb as they slowly sealed the iron door.

After a long pause, I finally said to the fat man, "So you think the problem lies inside that door?"

The fat man shook his head, admitting he didn't know. "This passage is anything but ordinary. It might not just be a corridor beneath the main tomb. There could be some connection between it and the main burial chamber."

I understood what he meant. The connection wasn't simply the passage that had dropped him down—it was something more intrinsic. The clues at hand were few; any possibility had to be explored. If we delayed too long, not only would we fail to rescue anyone, but we might end up trapped here ourselves.

"Then let's break open this door and see what's inside," I said, looking at the fat man and Peanut.

The fat man blew smoke at the iron door. "Did you notice what's missing from the door?"

At his prompt, I examined the door and soon realized what he meant. "There's no keyhole. This door... isn't locked."

"Not unlocked—it's locked from the inside," Peanut suddenly stepped forward. He felt along the junction between the iron door and the wall, fell silent for a moment, then said, "There are at least five steel rods set into the wall from inside. The mechanism to release them is inside the chamber."

"What? How is that possible? If the lock is inside, how did those people seal the door? Did they sacrifice someone inside?" If so, that seemed an enormous price—who would be so foolish?

"No need," the fat man explained. "All you need is a strand of gold wire."

His words made everything clear. The people who used such an internal lock clearly wanted whatever was inside to remain forever undiscovered. My idea of sacrificing someone wasn't impossible, but typically, they'd tie a strand of gold wire or another fine, strong cord to the lock mechanism. After closing the door, they'd pull the wire from outside to activate the lock. Finally, they'd dispose of the wire. As long as the door was solid enough, no one would ever get inside again.

The fat man continued, "This method is rare in ancient tombs. Big tombs usually rely on sealed stone. The presence of an internally locked iron door in a chamber like this suggests it held some crucial secret of the tomb owner—something they never wanted outsiders to know. But in our case, this was done by later visitors, which makes it even more interesting."

"So is there any way to open it?" I asked, automatically looking at Peanut.

"Unless you have a mortar to blast it, the three of us might as well wait until we turn to dust," the fat man replied.

"You're the one turning to dust," I snapped. Whenever the fat man talked about anything other than the main issue, he rambled aimlessly. This sort of person was suited for fieldwork—put him in charge, and he'd drive everyone mad within three sentences.

"The door can't be opened, but that doesn't mean there's no way," Peanut said. We all looked at him. Peanut pointed to the chambers on each side of the iron door. "Breaking through the wall is easier than smashing the door."

The fat man's eyes lit up instantly. "Hey, that's right! Looks like Fat Uncle here got knocked silly earlier—how could I forget Mao's rural encirclement strategy of flanking the city?"